


Reincarnation and Redemption

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-05-29
Updated: 2002-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-20 21:31:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11343543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived atThe Basement, which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address onThe Basement's collection profile.





	Reincarnation and Redemption

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

Reincarnation and Redemption

## Reincarnation and Redemption

#### by Fox Mulder

From: "Fox Mulder" Subject: [RatB-K] "FIC" - Reincarnation & Redemption; or, for Bill Mulder Date: Wednesday, August 29, 2001 5:28 PM 

DISCLAIMER - If I have to, I have to. There. 

* * *

The boy slips soundlessly from between cool sheets, his shadow thrown against the wall of his bedtoom by a silver shaft of light from a summer's full moon. Like a whisper he pulls on a ragged pair of cut-off shorts -tenderly, so tenderly, the welts from that familiar strap are fresh, so fresh - and moves in a glide to his window, his narrow bare chest framed in light. 

The house is silent, the darkness having enveloped his parents in sleep and shrouded him from them, from his father, from the way his mother looks at him and the way he looks at himself in the mirror. There is no sadness; only a deep, aching calm and some sort of emptiness, like the loss of a friend. But the feeling of rightness, of relief, is still there, still pulses in his chest as it has since the thought became final, the hurt concrete, as he lay crying silently and nursing his hurt in the cooling bathtub earlier that evening. 

"Big tough man, can't you straighten up? All your fault, all your fault. We left you in charge." 

His slender hand reaches out; closes around several objects that lay on his desk, and like a ghost boy he walks to the door of his room and there he pauses, looking around. At the empty bed. The moonlight through the window, his bureau, the model planes and collection of a child's dreams. Back when he was still a child. Fourteen, fourteen, and too old, now. His father says so. 

"Hey - get out of my life!" 

Down the stairs and into the empty living room, pulling up a chair to the tall shelf by the door - he knows where this box is. There used to be a lock on it, but it was broken a couple years ago and no one bothered to replace it. They've has more important things to worry about, like their missing daughter and their son who has more or less become nonexistent. 

More or less. 

The boy reaches for the box, opens it, puts a hand on what's inside. 

Breathes. 

Carrying his things back up the stairs, fingers tented against the door of his father's study - sanctified place, off-limits place, hated place. The place his father retreats to now, the place where the conversations are held so many nights, the place he sees in his nightmares when Bill Mulder puts a hand on the back of his neck and the other on the buckle of his belt. 

Breathing, faster now. 

Without bothering to turn the lights on - he can find his way by touch and the moonlight seeping through the blinds - he moves to his father's chair and sits down slowly, carefully. He opens one hand and spreads before him like an altar the things he's brought: the picture, his family together and smiling, Samantha in the middle with her hair reddened by the sun. A carved wooden fox, made by his father for his fifth birthday, kept ever since. And the plastic game piece, the last one, the red number 2. Scout. 

The last thing he touched before he ruined his family's lives. 

He is crying now, a little; the chair smells so much like the man that is his father - aftershave and cologne, an undertone of scotch whiskey and the simple scent of the man himself. The boy remembers afternoons spent painting their boat; camping in the woods, his mother and his sister and backyard barbecues. It is like a film reel that has turned black suddenly; he is only fourteen, but he knows enough to understand why his father never touches him anymore except to punish him for something, always something, but always the same thing, underneath; he knows enough to understand the accusations and the truth in them; he was, after all, in charge. His mother's pills and the emptiness in her eyes; why every time he tries to talk to them it is like stepping into an icy draft. He knows it was his fault, knows he should be looking for her, knows that he is the only one left who still cares. But he is tired, so tired, and tonight he has tried again and again he has failed. Weeks spent biking around the neighborhood, months spent alone and remembering, remembering, the night spent catatonic and shivering in the Martha's Vineyard Hospital; the Thorazine prescribed for him while a shadowy smoking figure watched from his mother's kitchen; the empty bed and the untouched toys. He kept a journal for her, writing letters about his life, kept it up for a year and a half before the truth finally began to come home to him. 

He wants to believe, but he is tired. 

His father hates him. 

Before the deep ache can become guilt and he can begin to double-guess himself he opens his other hand and gingerly unwraps the object hidden inside. The metal catches the silver moonlight and glitters as he shifts the revolver to his right hand; it is beautiful, even in his purpose. It did him no good two years ago, but now it will bring an end to the search, to the voices, to the pain. His father will no longer be reminded of the child he lost every time he looks at the child that remains. He will punish himself for his own failure; he will follow the course of action that his wounded heart believes is right. 

The taste of gun oil; his heart triple-beats. He closes his other hand around the wooden fox and shuts his eyes softly. There is no need of a note; they will know, oh, they will know why. And be relieved. The objects on the desk will serve as all the testimony he needs. 

He sings a little, softly, an old song that they used to sing. His voice is slow and thickened with tears. He smiles a little. 

He does love them. He hopes they know that. 

There is a shot. Only one. 

"I'm on the outside  
I'm looking in  
I can see through you  
See your true colors-  
'Cause inside you're ugly  
Ugly like me  
I can see through you  
See to the real you. . ." 

Somewhere in Pennsylvania, a young boy whose parents still call him Aleksei awakens and turns his head as if hearing a voice call his name; the course of his life will be irrevocably changed by that single shot; somewhere else a red-haired girl awakens her sister crying from a nightmare she can't explain. Somewhere else the stars turn and the universe aligns to send him back - wrong, wrong, wrong. Like a light. Like a light in the sky. Mistake, to leave at all. 

Can we believe that Bill Mulder, awakened by the shot and knowing exactly what it was, cradles his dead son in his arms and makes his own vows as his mother weeps? Can we believe that the man, his clothes splattered and smeared with blood, closes his eyes and remembers his own words, his own mistakes, his own accusations? Can we believe that the boy's parents, in their grief, are reunited and stand against the Project, that this is Bill Mulder's final straw and he makes a stand against that dark man, demands an end, sabotages his own work? That Samantha comes home, that all of them are returned, that the invasion is forestalled? That they stand, all of them. in dark suits beside a too-small grave, that they can fight the future? 

I want to believe. 

But I'm still here. 

Why? 

* * *

Fox Mulder  
8/29/01 

* * *

If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to Fox Mulder 


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